The Life of the Tenant Classes 79 



is in the hands of Negro owners and that again the cash 

 tenants occupy an intermediate position. 



Table 11 (opposite page) indicates that for the State 

 as a whole the per acre values of land occupied by Negro 

 farmers are: share tenant farms, $17.77; cash tenant farms, 

 $14.04; owner farms, $11.29. One may see by the uni- 

 formity with which this relationship holds in the individual 

 counties that this difference is not due to any concentration 

 on particularly valuable lands in any one section of the 

 State. 



The interesting exception to note is Liberty County. 

 This county was mentioned in the previous chapter as the 

 county containing the largest number of Negro land owners. 

 It was pointed out that just after the Civil War, in the rice 

 plantation counties immediately east of Liberty, there was 

 complete disorganization. In Liberty and its adjoining coun- 

 ties there were immense tracts of wild land. As a result 

 the large slave population had the opportunity to buy very 

 cheaply, and in some instances secured what is now the 

 most valuable land. This is just the reverse of what has 

 been true in the rest of the State, especially in the old Black 

 Belt. In the counties where Negroes bought land already 

 in farms rather than wild land, they could buy the cheaper 

 land only. The same principle held good to a lesser degree 

 with renting. The more productive lands have been held 

 by landlords for cultivation with labor or share tenants. 



The cultivation of these more valuable lands is, in itself 

 a great advantage to the share tenant in getting results, and, 

 to some extent accounts for the fact that he obtains a larger 

 yield per acre. 



IMPLEMENTS AND MACHINERY. 



The foregoing Table (11) indicates that the reverse is 

 true of the value of implements and machinery used per 

 farm. The census figures show a larger per farm value of 

 implements for owners than for cash tenants and for cash 



